Hero to irrelevent in 1.0 centuries

     In one series of readings the thread moves from the lionization of the individual genius to a point where the author as such is no longer relevant but rather assumes a structural function vis a vis the text.     
     For Baudelaire, the genius is the one who can recover childhood, but with the adult abilities of analysis and self-expression. He argues that few have the faculty for childlike perception and that fewer still also have the ability of self-expression. The genius then is a person possessing a special faculty who can show us the beauty they perceive in living. He selectsas an example a particular serial artist for his curiosity and his adventurous life. It is odd that he also chooses the Dandy as a class of genius. The work becomes secondary to the process and skill of the creator for Baudelaire. Only a genius can create a masterpiece.
     One hundred years later, the author is dead, and a structural function has been substituted. The I of the text is not the I of the writer. In the space between those two subjects, the author-function does its work. The text is presented as an artifact which is working for its independence, and breaking free of the specific conditions of its creation. Foucault brings up an excellent point when he speaks of the added signification of the name of the author. There are some in the critical world who will work hard to reconcile difficulties in a text because it is created by a name. (I.e. apologizing for Shakespeare’s reinforcement of patriarchy in “Taming of the Shrew”)  To separate the text from the author is a move toward “objectivity.” What is most interesting is Foucault’s inability to define the author-function. He gives its relationship to legal structure, and then several things that the author-function is not. He even expresses recognition that he hasn’t asserted much.
     In the final analysis, I believe that either of these extremes is counterproductive in the amount they conceal. To give too much weight to the author, is to skim the text. To kill the author is to ignore the text’s relationship to the material conditions of it’s production. Somewhere in between lies the appropriate balance of the two.